TRUE EVIL
One of the biggest lies of our culture is that evil is always obvious.
We picture evil as something dramatic.
Something monstrous.
Something only found in the worst people on earth.
But Jesus made it much more personal than that.
In Mark 7, Jesus said evil does not begin out there first.
It comes from within the human heart.
That is why this topic makes people uncomfortable.
Because it is easy to call the world evil.
It is easy to point at corrupt leaders, violent criminals, broken systems, and wicked people on the news.
But Jesus points deeper.
He points at the human heart.
He talks about lying.
He talks about murder.
He talks about pride.
He talks about sexual immorality.
He talks about greed.
He talks about envy.
He talks about hatred.
And most of us can find at least one of those trying to live somewhere inside us.
That is the part nobody wants to admit.
Evil is not only what happens when someone does the worst thing imaginable.
Evil also shows up when a person lies and calls it protection.
When they hate and call it discernment.
When they are proud and call it confidence.
When they are greedy and call it ambition.
When they lust and call it normal.
When they envy and call it fairness.
When they destroy someone with words and call it honesty.
This is why Jesus did not come just to improve human behavior.
He came to deal with the heart.
Because if the heart stays corrupt, the outside can look religious while the inside stays rotten.
A person can go to church and still be cruel.
A person can quote Scripture and still be full of pride.
A person can post about God and still lie when it benefits them.
A person can know the Bible and still refuse to repent.
That is why we need more than image management.
We need transformation.
We need the Holy Spirit to expose what we keep defending.
We need God to show us where hatred has been hiding under the name of truth.
Where pride has been hiding under the name of standards.
Where greed has been hiding under the name of success.
Where lust has been hiding under the name of freedom.
Where envy has been hiding under the name of justice.
True evil is not always wearing a mask that scares you.
Sometimes it wears your own excuses.
Sometimes it sounds like your own justification.
Sometimes it feels like something you have gotten comfortable protecting.
That is why repentance is not just for the people we think are worse than us.
Repentance is for every person who is honest enough to say, “Lord, search my heart.”
Because Jesus did not come to clean the outside while leaving the inside unchanged.
He came to make dead hearts alive.
Mark 7:21 to 23
#BibleTruth #ChristianLiving #JesseSpeaks
